2.
SECTION 1:
INTRODUCTION TO SEO
 What is SEO?
 Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to techniques
that help your website rank higher in organic (or “natural”)
search results, thus making your website more visible to
people who are looking for your product or service via
search engines.
 SEO is part of the broader topic of Search Engine
Marketing (SEM), a term used to describe all marketing
strategies for search. SEM entails both organic and paid
search. With paid search, you can pay to list your website
on a search engine so that your website shows up when
someone types in a specific keyword or phrase. Organic
and paid listings both appear on the search engine, but
they are displayed in different locations on the page.

3.
SECTION 1:
INTRODUCTION TO SEO
 What about paid search? Yes, you can pay to have
your website listed on the search engines.
However, running paid search campaigns can be
quite costly if you don‟t know what you‟re doing.
 Because the sole purpose of a search engine is to
provide you with relevant and useful information, it is
in everyone‟s best interest (for the search
engine, the searcher, and you) to ensure that your
website is listed in the organic search listings. In
fact, it is probably best to stay away from paid search
all together until you feel you have a firm grasp on
SEO and what it takes to rank organically.

4.
HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORKS?
 Search engines have one objective – to provide you with the most
relevant results possible in relation to your search query. If the
search engine is successful in providing you with information that
meets your needs, then you are a happy searcher. And happy
searchers are more likely to come back to the same search
engine time and time again because they are getting the results
they need.
 In order for a search engine to be able to display results when a
user types in a query, they need to have an archive of available
information to choose from. Every search engine has proprietary
methods for gathering website content. Regardless of the specific
tactics or methods used, this process is called indexing. Search
engines actually attempt to scan the entire online universe and
index all the information so they can show it to you when you
enter a search query.

5.
HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORKS?
 How do they do it? Every search engine has
what are referred to as bots, or crawlers, that
constantly scan the web, indexing websites
for content and following links on each
webpage to other webpages. If your website
has not been indexed, it is impossible for
your website to appear in the search results.

7.
HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORKS?
 So, big search engines like Google, Bing,
and Yahoo are constantly indexing hundreds
of millions, if not billions, of webpages. How
do they know what to show on the SERP
when you enter a search query? The search
engines consider two main areas when
determining what your website is about and
how to give priority to it.

8.
HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORKS?
 1. Content on your website: When indexing pages, the search engine
bots scan each page of your website, looking for clues about what topics
your website covers and scanning your website‟s back-end code for
certain tags, descriptions, and instructions.
 2. Who’s linking to you: As the search engine bots scan webpages for
indexing, they also look for links from other websites. The more inbound
links a website has, the more influence or authority it has. Essentially,
every inbound link counts as a vote for that website‟s content. Also,
each inbound link holds different weight. For instance, a link from a
highly authoritative website like The New York Times (nytimes.com) will
give a website a bigger boost than a link from a small blog site. This
boost is sometimes referred to as link juice.

9.
HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORKS?
 When a search query is entered, the search engine
looks in its index for the most relevant information
and displays the results on the SERP. The results are
then listed in order of most relevant and authoritative.
 If you conduct the same search on different search
engines, chances are you will see different results on
the SERP. This is because each search engine uses
a proprietary algorithm that considers multiple factors
in order to determine what results to show in the
SERP when a search query is entered.

13.
HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORKS?
 Google dominates the search engine market.
Google became the leader by the way
search engines work and giving searchers
better results with their advanced algorithm.
With 64% market share, according to
Compete, Inc., Google is still viewed as the
primary innovator and master in the space.

14.
WHAT IT TAKES TO RANK
 It is not difficult to get your website to index and even rank on the
search engines. However, getting your website to rank for specific
keywords can be tricky. There are essentially 3 elements that a
search engine considers when determining where to list a website
on the SERP: rank, authority, and relevance.
 Rank
 Rank is the position that your website physically falls in on the
SERP when a specific search query is entered. If you are the first
website in the organic section of the SERP (don‟t be confused by
the paid ads at the very top), then your rank is 1. If your website
is in the second position, your rank is 2, and so on. As discussed
previously in How Search Engines Work, your rank is an indicator
of how relevant and authoritative your website is in the eyes of
the search engine, as it relates to the search query entered.

16.
RANK
 Authority
 As previously discussed in the How Search
Engines Work section, search engines
determine how authoritative and credible a
website‟s content is by calculating how many
inbound links (links from other websites) it has.
However, the number of inbound links does not
necessarily correlate with higher rankings. The
search engines also look at how authoritative
the websites that link to you are, what anchor
text is used to link to your website, and other
factors such as the age of your domain.

17.
RANK
 Relevance
 Relevance is a one of the most critical factors of
SEO. The search engines are not only looking to see
that you are using certain keywords, but they are also
looking for clues to determine how relevant your
content is to a specific search query. Besides actual
text on your webpages, the search engines will
review your website‟s structure, use of keywords in
your URLs, page formatting (such as bolded
text), and what keywords are in the headline of the
webpage versus those in the body text.

18.
LONG-TAIL CONCEPT
 A critical component of SEO is choosing the right
keywords for optimization. If you sell shoes, you may
want your website to rank for “shoe store,” (a head term),
but chances are you are going to have some trouble
there. However, if you optimize multiple pages on your
website for each specific pair of shoes that you sell, you
are going to have much more success and it will be easier
to rank on the SERP. A keyword like “red tennis shoes
with Velcro” (a long-tail keyword or term) is a good
example. Sure, the number of people that search for this
keyword will be much lower than the number that search
for “shoe store,” but you can almost bet that those
searchers are much farther down the sales funnel and
may be ready to buy.

19.
LONG-TAIL CONCEPT
 This is why long-tail keywords are so
effective. They target people who are looking
to perform a specific action, like buy
something, or looking for a specific piece of
information, like a how-to or a service that
can solve their problem. By choosing to
optimize with long-tail keywords, you will find
it easier to rank on the search engines, drive
qualified traffic, and turn that traffic into leads
and customers.

20.
CONTENT IS KING
 We‟ve all heard it - when it comes to SEO, content is king.
Without rich content, you will find it difficult to rank for specific
keywords and drive traffic to your website. Additionally, if your
content does not provide value or engage users, you will be far
less likely to drive leads and customers.
 It is impossible to predict how people will search for content and
exactly what keywords they are going to use. The only way to
combat this is to generate content and lots of it. The more content
and webpages you publish, the more chances you have at
ranking on the search engines. Lottery tickets are a good analogy
here. The more lottery tickets you have, the higher the odds are
that you will win. Imagine that every webpage you create is a
lottery ticket. The more webpages you have, the higher your
chances are of ranking in the search engines.

21.
CONTENT IS KING
 As you already know, the search engines are
smart. If you create multiple webpages about
the same exact topic, you are wasting your
time. You need to create lots of content that
covers lots of topics. There are multiple ways
you can use content to expand your online
presence and increase your chances of
ranking without being repetitive. Here are few
examples:

22.
CONTENT IS KING
 Homepage: Use your homepage to cover your overall
value proposition and high-level messaging. If there was
ever a place to optimize for more generic keywords, it is
your homepage.
 Product/Service Pages: If you offer products and/or
services, create a unique webpage for each one of them.
 Resource Center: Provide a webpage that offers links to
other places on your website that cover education,
advice, and tips.
 Blog: Blogging is an incredible way to stay current and
fresh while making it easy to generate tons of content.
Blogging on a regular basis (once per week is ideal) can
have a dramatic impact on SEO because every blog post
is a new webpage.

23.
CONTENT IS KING
 While conducting SEO research, you may
come across articles that discuss being
mindful of keyword density (how often you
mention a keyword on a page).

24.
HOW TO APPROACH YOUR SEO STRATEGY
 When developing an SEO strategy, it is best
to split your initiatives into two buckets: on-
page SEO and off-page SEO. On-page SEO
covers everything you can control on each
specific webpage and across your website to
make it easy for the search engines to
find, index, and understand the topical nature
of your content. Off-page SEO covers all
aspects of SEO that happen off your website
to garner quality inbound links.

25.
WEBSITE CONTENT
 As mentioned in the Content is King section, you
want to write content that your audience will find
valuable and engaging. Aside from the topical nature
of the content, the way you format your webpages
can have an impact on how the search engine bots
digest your content. Every webpage you create
should have a thought-provoking headline to grab the
reader‟s attention, and should also include the
keyword or phrase that the webpage covers. Other
body formatting, such as bolding certain keywords or
phrases, can help stress the importance of phrases
you are optimizing for.

26.
URL STRUCTURE
 The actual structure of your website URL can
have an impact on the search engines‟
ability to index and understand your
website‟s content. Opting for a more
organized URL structure will have the
greatest impact.
 For e.g.
 www.softprocomp.com/dtp-training-mumbai.html

27.
PICTURES
 Every picture you upload to your website will have a
file name. When the picture is inserted on your
website, the picture‟s file name actually lives in your
website‟s sources code, or HTML. Since the search
engines scan your website‟s code, you should use
file names that describe the picture. For
example, „red-tennis-shoes-velcro.jpg‟ is much more
useful than „pic12345.jpg‟.
 Additionally, you can give the search engines an
extra hand by including alt tags on all pictures on
your website. Alt tags are short snippets of code that
allow you to tag each photo on your site with a short
text blurb.

28.
TITLE TAG & META TAGS
 Besides an actual text headline on your page, every webpage you
create has a title tag. This is the text snippet that appears in the upper
left corner or on the tabs of your web browser. Also, the title tag is the
blue link that the search engines show when they list your webpage on
the SERP. Title tags max out at 75 characters, so choose your words
wisely.
 Meta tags are snippets of code you can include within your webpage‟s
HTML. The meta tags are usually located near the title tag code in the
head of your HTML. There are two meta tags – meta description and
meta keywords.
 The meta description is a text snippet that describes what your specific
webpage is about. Meta descriptions are usually the first place a search
engine will look to find text to put under your blue link when they list your
website on the SERP. If you do not have a meta description, the search
engines will usually select a random piece of content from the page they
are linking to. The meta description is limited to 150 characters.

30.
META KEYWORDS
 Meta keywords consists of an additional text
snippet in the HTML that allows you to list a few
different keywords that relate to your webpage.
Back in the day, search engines used this field
to determine what keywords to rank your
webpage for. Now, most search engines claim
they do not even use meta keywords when
indexing content. Some small or niche search
engines may still use it though. As a best
practice, it is recommended to put 5-7 keywords
in the meta keywords, but don‟t spend too
much time thinking about it.

31.
HEADLINE TAGS
 When the search engine bots scan your webpages,
they look for clues to determine exactly what your
webpage is about. Keywords that are treated
differently than most others on the page show the
search engines that they are more important than
other keywords on the page. This is why the use of
headline tags within your page is so important. By
using various headline tags (each tag will produce a
different size headline), you not only make your
webpage easier to digest from a reader‟s standpoint,
but you will also give the search engines definitive
clues as to what is important on the page.

32.
INTERNAL LINKING
 Up until this point we have only referenced inbound
links, or those links coming to you website from other
websites. When creating content for your website on
your blog or on specific webpages, you may want to
reference other pages on your website. You can
reference these other pages by inserting a link to
another webpage within a specific webpage‟s
content. The use of anchor text is recommended
when linking to another webpage or even another
website. When anchor text is used, it implies that the
page you are linking to is about the keyword or
phrase you use as your anchor. This is yet another
way you can help out the search engines.

33.
OFF PAGE SEO
 Compared to on-page SEO, off-page SEO can
certainly be more difficult to execute. Off-page
SEO entails building relationships with other
websites through the creation of attractive
content, or reaching out to the people who run
the websites. This process of building
relationships is called link building. Who is
linking to you, how they are linking to you, and
how your content is shared in social networks
and across the web are all factors that can have
a significant impact on your ability to rank on the
SERP.

34.
WHOIS LINKING TO YOU
 Since the Internet is essentially an inter-
linking network of pages and websites that
make up the World Wide Web, not every link
is created equal. Links from major
publications and blogs usually provide more
link juice because they are visited by millions
of people each day. Therefore, they have an
incredible impact on the ability for webpage
to go viral.

35.
WHOIS LINKING TO YOU
 It is in a newspaper website‟s very nature to
link to authoritative websites that relate to
current stories and trends. Therefore, these
websites are most likely more valuable than
others. The same goes for education
websites with a .edu domain, since these are
reserved for educational institutions. As
such, the search engines realize that links to
your website from these websites equate to
you having more authority.

36.
HOW ARE THEY LINKING TO YOU?
 Just like when anchor text is used to link an
internal webpage to another one of your
webpages, the use of anchor text when another
website links to you can be extremely helpful in
creating relevancy to certain keywords and
phrases. If you have the option, always request
keyword-rich anchor text for a link that uses
your domain. That said, if you have no other
option, still take a link with anchor text to your
domain. All link juice is good.